Of Wars and Rumours of Wars

I have been informed of an upcoming clandestine meeting of clerics who were recently expelled from the FSSPX. These priests were invited to leave the Society after the intrigue and disobedience surrounding their opposition to the Superior General of the FSSPX and his cautious willingness to engage the Roman authorities regarding the doctrinal issues which have kept — and continue to keep — the Society in a canonically irregular state within the Catholic Church. They denounced Superior General, Bishop Bernard Fellay, as a traitor to the memory and mission of the Society’s founder, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, for +Fellay’s mere willingness to communicate with the Holy Father and officials in the Roman Curia after the Supreme Pontiff liberated the traditional Mass and “lifted” Pope John Paul II’s 1988 excommunications of the Society’s bishops.

The report suggests that this meeting is to be held in two weeks’ time at Vienna in Virginia, being hosted by Fr. Ronald Ringrose. Bishop Richard Williamson, a former member of the FSSPX, will be in attendance. The purpose of the secret conclave is to reorganise amongst themselves what they see as being the “true” Society of St. Pius X, and, most distressingly, to consecrate a new bishop for their new hardline sect. It is rumoured that Fr. Joseph Pfeiffer is to be chosen a bishop at this time.

Published by Christian Clay Columba Campbell

Christian Clay Columba Campbell is a Roman Catholic of the Anglican Use. As Senior Warden of the Cathedral of the Incarnation (Orlando, FL), he organised the process by which the parish accepted the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus, petitioning to join the Catholic Church. The Anglican Cathedral is now the Church of the Incarnation in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.
Personal queries should be directed to me at eccentricbliss dot com.
View more posts

Join the Conversation

“for +Fellay’s mere willingness to communicate with the Holy Father and officials in the Roman Curia”

This or simlar accusations against the “Willimasonites” are very often heard of, but they do not get more true thereby.

Just for fairness and justice: the “Williamson-Pfeifer” faction has not accused the “Fellay-frction” of beeing a traitor to the memory… for the mere willingness to communicate with Rome — as everybody can confirm by reading their open available accusations of Fellay and Co. on the Internet — , but for the willingness to make a practical agreement before there is a doctrinal agreement.

As the leaders of the SSPX themselves admitted the doctrinal discussions failed: there was no doctrinal agreement between Rome and the society.

And the old line of approach of the SSPX indeed was: we will not and should / ought not make any practical agreement before there is doctrinal agreement (as also everybody can read in the internet, looking up the old materials of the sspx open available). This shift of line of approach Williamson & Co. was critcizing.

Sorry, but even if you disagree with them, also strongly so — they nonetheless deserve justice as every man.

If this is true, I weep for the grave spiritual danger Williamson and those who follow him are placing themselves. This will clearly be an act of schism.

I will say that I myself was a clergyman in the so-called Independent movement. Totally aware of my dangerous spiritual position, by God’s mercy, I became convinced that my only harbor was in an Eastern Church in communion with the Roman Church. It was the best decision I’ve ever made.

It is no more or less a schism than the consecrations of Archbishop Lef. were or the consecration that Bp. Williamson (and the two other Bss. T. and de G.) did before for Campos.

(So btw, it will not be the first time Williamson is consecrating a bishop!)

And they are not more or less a “(hardline) sect” than the SSPX still is or the Association of St. Marie Vianney in Campos was before 2000.

Me like many canonists hold that those consecrations were not constituting a schism, at least not in the strict sense. And I also hold that neither the SSPX is nor the priestly association in Campos was a sect and so that also in this case we have not some unCatholic sect. It is disobedience and extraordinary, of course, but as the case of the SSPX and Campos (and the declarations also from Rome these last few years) should have been proofing: no schism (in itself).

I also wonder why some fellow Catholics are so eager in throwing around with the words “schism” and “sect” re those who want only to persevere the Catholic faith in its fullness and orthodoxy whilst many so called Catholics (incl. priests and bishops) are so unorthodox and anti-Roman, that they deserve the words “schismatics” and “sect” clearly more — but seldom I hear those same Cahtolics speak f.e. of the “schismatic Cardinal Schönborn and his sect of the dioceses of Vienna” resp. “heretical Abp. Müller and his liberal-hardline sect of followers”. And Schönborn or Müller are clearly more of a schismatic or heretic mentality and behaviour than Williamson & Co (For Müller to see that he is clearly a (soft-)liberal and heretic/modernist, you only have to read the foreword of his dogmatics and there only the first paragraph and that is yet enough to form this clear judgement — let alone his re-interpreting of the dogma of the virg. in partu or what he writes re resurrection etc.!)

Yes, there are many good Catholics in the SSPX but to give the whole story, Pope Pius XII forbade consecrating Bishops without Papal mandate under pain of excommunication. In the Council of Trent, we read “the Pope as a duty of his office appoints bishops for each of the churches, and no lawful consecration may take place in the entire Catholic Church without the order of the Apostolic See ” so at the least it is not necessarily a good idea to go on consecrating Bishops indefinitely.

If you weep for the schism of the SSPX clergy in the Catholic Church, then you must have been weeping for Bishop Fellay for some time now.

But first a clear understanding of schism must be clarified for all, including Dixibehr. To fall into schism is to separate oneself from the Catholic Faith and from those who are in authority who sustain the Catholic Faith. That separation from the faith is what the Vatican and all it’s authoritative members has accomplished to include those who follow e.g. Bishop Fellay. It is Bishop Fellay who desires to be under the authority of a heretical -schismatic church.

Saint Paul says, schism is a genus which embraces two distinct species: heretical or mixed schism and schism pure and simple. The first has its source in heresy or joined with it, the second, which most theologians designate absolutely as schism, is the rupture of the bond of subordination without an accompanying persistent error, directly opposed to a definite dogma.

This distinction was drawn by St. Jerome and St. Augustine. “Between heresy and schism”, explains St. Jerome, “there is this difference, that heresy perverts dogma, while schism, by rebellion against the bishop, separates from the Church. It is the Vatican that has separated itself from the Church. It is Bishop Fellay who wishes that the SSPX join the Vatican.

Except that Vatican I says, “Wherefore we teach and declare that, by divine ordinance, the Roman Church possesses a pre-eminence of ordinary power over every other Church, and that this jurisdictional power of the Roman Pontiff is both episcopal and immediate. Both clergy and faithful, of whatever rite and dignity, both singly and collectively, are bound to submit to this power by the duty of hierarchical subordination and true obedience, and this not only in matters concerning faith and morals, but also in those which regard the discipline and government of the Church throughout the world.

So, then, if anyone says that the Roman Pontiff has merely an office of supervision and guidance, and not the full and supreme power of jurisdiction over the whole Church, and this not only in matters of faith and morals, but also in those which concern the discipline and government of the Church dispersed throughout the whole world; or that he has only the principal part, but not the absolute fullness, of this supreme power; or that this power of his is not ordinary and immediate both over all and each of the Churches and over all and each of the pastors and faithful: let him be anathema.”

So now there is to be a schism within the schism of the SSPX! This is becoming more Protestant all the time! The Holy Father, committed to reconciliation, has done everything in his power to bring to an end the “irregular” position of the SSPX, but if they want him to repudiate everything that has happened in the Catholic Church in the last 50 years, they are asking the impossible.

The SSPX considers itself to be a true “remnant” of the Catholic Church. Now Fr Ringrose and Bishop Williamson see themselves as a remnant of the remnant. As I said, how Protestant. The consecration of a new bishop can only be an act of schism and defiance, against both Bishop Fellay and against the Catholic Church. Obedience to the magisterium of the Church is what defines a Catholic. If the SSPX, or any remnant thereof refuses the overtures made to them by the Holy Father, they should all be declared heretical, unti such times as they repent of their schismatic ways. The Holy Father has shown them enough patience.

Whoa! This is a hodgepodge. Schism and heresy may be swimming in the pond but they are not the same fishes. First of all, since the S.S.P.X is not regularised in the eyes of Rome, I cannot see how one can be a schismatic solely for the cause of leaving an unregularised body. They may or may not be schismatics in the first place, but they can’t become schismatics for leaving the Society.

As for the charge of schism, the P.C.E.D. has made this fairly clear in the past. The 1988 consecrations were a schismatic act but not one sufficient to complete a formal schism. That sounds odd to some but think of a lumberjack delivering the blow of an axe to a tree. The first blow is destructive but does not fell the tree, so it is not fatal and does not complete the act of killing the tree. There is no formal schism. What we have in the S.S.P.X is something less; we have disobedience to legitimate authority. However, disobedience to any authority can be either wrongful or rightful. If there is a crisis in the Church, this might justify disobedience in a case of necessity. Arguably, it can be inferred from the 1983 Code that even a mistaken belief that a case of necessity exists can justify an act of disobedience. So it’s complicated.

As for heresy, I’m not sure what heresy the Strict Observants have embraced. Can you name one? The S.S.P.X is not Protestant because it does not rebel against the principles of unity or legitimate authority. Where you will find Protestantism, however, is at countless New Masses which break with the authority of the Church by violating rubrical law, for example, and by introducing all manner of innovation.

It is true that small groups can become fissiparous. But there are also typically re-mergings. Assuming that Bishop Fellay fails to reach an accord with Benedict XVI, many people will be begin to wonder why Fellay does not reconcile with Bishop Williamson and his followers, at least for the sake of unity: L’union fait la force.

Pablito you had the unfortunate luck to have your statement answer by Perkins.

The thing with Perkins is that he loves being right, (or so he thinks). Perkins loves having the last word and he will use his fancy rhetoric to tell how things are, how they should be. If you challange him he will used his vicious tongue to attack anyone if confronted with the reality that he is just words lots of words. That doesn’t mean he is right it just means he would like to be right all the time. Poor thing.

So play his game, let him believe he is right by simply ignoring his comments and then he will probably think he won and then he will leave you alone.

God bless.

ps. the SSPX are schism and but hey try telling some of their followers or supporters that.They won’t get it no matter what you say to them so again the trick here is to ignore them.

If this be true, it will put Bishop Fellay in a difficult position. First of all, the 1983 Code of Canons has not been altered. Therefore, it would result in apparent excommunication latæ sententiæ both for Bsp. Williamson and for Fr. Pfeifer. But that’s not all. If Bsp. W. can be re-excommunicated for consecrating a bishop without a papal mandate, then so can Bishops Fellay, Tissier de Mallerais and de Galarreta. And should the latter bishop not proceed eventually, how will they perpetuate their clergy? Abp. Müller would just love this outcome. So this will put +Fellay in a difficult situation or, it could be argued, it might give him a pretext for reconciliation, despite his recent condemnations of the Roman theological position.

It will be difficult for Benedict XVI to explain why Fellay and company would not be re-excommunicated for doing what Williamson plans to do. After all, this has absolutely nothing to do with the Holocaust: it is a simply matter of Roman Canon Law. It’s interesting how, all along, Rome never does anything to promote tradition unless forced by circumstances brought about by traditionalists.

The Holy Mother and Her Son have groomed Reverend Father Joseph Pfeiffer to be the leader of their re-building of Our Lord’s Church.

Nuestra Senora Santa Maria de Guadalupe has sent a Cristero/Tepeyac Hill Guadalupano to assist Father Pfeiffer.

With God’s grace and Our Lady’s help, he single handedly prevented the total sell out to Apostate Rome and it’s Jewish Freemason infiltrators by the Administration of His Excellency Bishop Bernard Fellay.

Father Pfeiffer’s consecration as a Bishop is not a done deal; as the Holy Father has disobeyed Our Lady’s request to Consecrate Russia to her Immaculate Heart, Bishop Williamson can also disobey and appoint someone else.

I wouldn’t call him a lunatic. anyone who has done ANY sort of research on the modern Catholic Church is well aware that the Jews and the masons have had a LOT to do with the current deplorable state in which its in. Most “Catholics” have NO CLUE as to what being a Catholic actually means, and that is the direct fault of the garbage that has been being spewed out of Rome for years now. btw, the definition of an anti-Semite: a Catholic who tells a Jew he can get to Heaven even if he doesn’t convert :).

Posted by pablothemexican:
“With God’s grace and Our Lady’s help, he single handedly prevented the total sell out to Apostate Rome and it’s Jewish Freemason infiltrators”

Why not admit that you are a sedavacantist? If you see Rome as aspostate, then you don’t accept the authority of the Holy Father. That makes you a sedavacantist and a schismatic. Just don’t pretend that you are a true Catholic, and the rest of the Church is apostate. It’s the other way round, and you should have the honesty and courage to say so.

The main question here is whether the Pope will completely ignore a new Williamsonian episcopate or whether he issue a declaration of automatic re-excommunication. Normally, it would be the former in a case like this, as giving +Williamson more publicity could only help him a bit. After all, +W. is not Lebebvre and does not have his stature (one reason being that ++Lefebvre was app. Abp. by a Pope and was Apostolic Delegate for all of Africa), and the tiny Strict Observance of the S.S.P.X is definitely not the S.S.P.X. In this particular case, however, I expect a declaration of excommunication. The reason is that this would have implications for the other S.S.P.X bishops. It would signal their fate should they not reach some sort of an accord. Moreoever, the Pope wants to find ways to condemn +Williamson for his Holocaust statements. This Pope, being German and wanting to curry favour with the secular world, wants at all cost to appease the Jews. That’s why he prays at synagogues.

Benedict XVI, in the past, has suggested “some changes” to the 1983 Code. One way around this would be for him to re-excommunicate W. and then change the law so that, in the case of the S.S.P.X, any future excommunications be imposed rather than automatic and be reserved to the Apostolic See. I cannot believe that Benedict XVI has come all this way with the S.S.P.X only to settle for a return of the pre-2009 situation. That would make his project a failure, and it would look bad for this pontificate. Remember that this Pope has been trying to reconcile the S.S.P.X since about 1980.

There is a way out of the present impasse. If they cannot reach an accord, Rome could condemn the S.S.P.X for supposed ‘serious error which is not formal heresy’. This would mean that the Society, as a body, could not be regularised and its priests could not be recognised as having ‘legitimate ministry’; however, its individual clerics could be recognised as Catholic and as valid priests, and their Masses recognised as fulfilling the Sunday and holyday obligation. This Pope would go futher. The 1983 Code makes space for a subjective notion of a state of necessity. Rome has two full years of doctrinal extracts from the Society from which she can draw the conclusion that the Society’s supposed error is honest. Therefore, it could be found, Society priests are in serious error but are not heretics, schismatics or apostates. So the Pope could recognise all their Sacraments and yet, at the same time, condemn them and warn faithful to avoid them. This would then create more impetus for completing the implementation of “Summorum Pontificum”.

In most dioceses where Society apostolates provide Mass every Sunday, there is now also at least one approved Traditional Latin Mass every Sunday. In fact, approved Latin Masses outnumber Society Masses by a ratio of 4 : 1 now in the U.S.A. and have surpassed Society Masses in France. They easily outnumber them in Italy, Spain, Poland, England, Belgium, the Philippines, and most other places, and the sole remaining Society stronghold in Argentina is now being challenged by a sudden increase in approved Latin Masses there (e.g. approvals of Latin Masses in the Archdioceses of Tucuman, Santa Fe, Cordoba, &c.).

If one looks at the numbers, one can see that the entire situation has changed fundamentally and drastically. We are no longer in the situation of 1985 or 1995 or even 2005. Today, it is Rome that supplies most Traditional Laitn Masses in most countries. The S.S.P.X continues to grow substantially but at a drastically reduced rate. It has reached a point at which it cannot afford to expand much into underdeveloped countries (where apostolates are costly), and it is challenged and outnumbered everywhere else. This does not spell the extinction of the Society. Not at all, for it can still rely on its large families and a huge field into which some growth wiill always remain possible. But Rome can now contain and marginalise it.

To complete this work of marginalisation, the P.C.E.D. needs to deal with the hard-line leftist bishops in the north-east of France (particularly those in Verdun, Langres, Reims and Cambrai). Even there, however, the writing is on the wall. Bishop Gueneley of Langres will turn 75 in November; Bishop Maupu of Verdun is 73½. Bishop Housset of La Rochelle is about 72½ (his see is on the Atlantic seaboard). There are now ‘regularised’ every-Su. Traditional Latin Masses in 80 of the 93 French dioceses, as against 75 for the S.S.P.X; and, since 2011, the overall number of ‘regularised’ Latin Masses has finally surpassed the number of Society Masses. In the U.S.A., there are regularised every-Su. Latin Masses in 153 of 176 Latin dioceses. In contrast, the S.S.P.X has them each Sunday in only 43 or 44 of those 176 dioceses. The Society is still ahead significantly only in Argentina and India–and not for long in the former case. In the case of India, the S.S.P.X offers Mass each Sunday in eight or ten dioceses (as against zero for Rome) but this is aout of over 140 dioceses in that country.

I suspect that this Pope and Cardinal Müller will issue an encyclical on the nature of tradition as the rule of interpretation for the Deposit of Faith. The Society will be asked to assent to this non-infallible but binding teaching. Should it not do so, its members will not be excommunicated but will be marginalised. The problem, however, is that, one find day, Bishop Fellay will need successor bishops. Should his remaining bishops be re-excommunicated, this can only make them marginalised all the more. They do have the option of holding on indefinitely as a small organisation adhering to the Truth, preparing for the end days, when the Church herself will be reduced to a remnant. I’ll leave it at that. I don’t much like the idea of compromise when it comes to eternal truth. Sooner or later, the Church must face the central theological controversies opened up by Vatican II, particularly on relious liberty, œcumenism and collegiality. Despite what Rahner and Küng, Müller and even Ratzinger may want, the fact is that Vatican II was only infallible when it repeated previously-declared infallible teaching. Even Müller reluctantly agrees. This means that the Council documents may be infected with expressive errors and even doctrinal error. In the end, that is the question which must determine outcomes.

By the way it’s not ‘Cardinal’ Muller as you address him, well not yet.

Felley is clearly heretically calleding the New Mass as legitimately promulagated by Pope Paul VI as vaid but illicit and like a so called ‘black mass’ – EVIL ! If this public statement of Fellay not heresy then what is it!

If Williamson were to ordain a bishop(s) the Holy See (the CDF) would no doubt excommunicate Williamson for heresy but would say that the ordination would be INVALID on account of Williamson being a ‘vagans’- with a sede vacantist mentality! It’s as simple as that.

Let us suppose that Bishop Williamson consecrates three new bishops: one in France, one in Mexico, and one in that land of rebels to the south of me. Now let us suppose that Bishop Fellay fails to reach an accord with Benedict XVI. Now let us suppose that Williamson and/or his successors reconcile with the S.S.P.X. Presto! The S.S.P.X gains three presumably young bishops for tne next generation.

For this reason, any Williamsonian consecrations will be followed by public declations of excommunication from Rome. It is not owing to Williamson’s stature but to ++Lefebvre’s, for W. is a bishop who has received undoubted episcopal consecration from Archbishop Lefebvre and Bishop de Castro Mayer.

P.K.T.P. would a reconciliation “as is” be so terrible. Would it not greatly speed up the restoration of the Church and the further spread of the traditional Mass? Most Catholics who love the Tridentine Mass stay away from the SSPX for the sole reason that it is irregular with Rome. This canonical irregularity may not be a big deal as such, but isn’t the fact that many Catholics think it a big deal a sufficient reason to think that perhaps there is no reason to perpetuate this situation indefinitely?

The problem is doctrinal, not practical. Bishop de Galarreta has said that Rome would be prepared to concede, at the end of the day, just about any canonical solution the Society might propose.

A major doctrinal problem seems to be disagreement over the nature and even the definition of tradition as the rule of interpretation of dogma. I can’t comment much on this. For one thing, the discussions between Rome and the Society on the matter are still private and unpublished.

As for my own view in all of this, I think that there are both expressive and doctrinal errors in some documents of Vatican II, particularly on religious freedom. I don’t need to support the S.S.P.X to believe this (and nor do I set myself up as the final judge on such matters). One need only live by Quanta Cura and the Syllabus of Errors each and every day, imbibing both its content and its spirit. In the end, truth will out. As this Pope was a peritus at the Council, he won’t be the man to ‘discover’ these Modernistic errors. That will be left to one of his successors. As for the decision of whether or not to support Society or independent or ‘regularised’ Masses, that will depend on the local situation, but I prefer to support ‘regularised’ Masses (whether Latin or Eastern or even Anglican Use) whenever possible for the sake of unity. There could be cases in some dioceses, however, when one might need to support an S.S.P.X Mass to protect one’s soul. Salus animarum lex suprema est.

All right. Have you listened to Bishop Fellay’s CNS interview where he spoke on this subject, religious freedom, in particular, and related some specifics from the doctrinal discussions with the Vatican?

BISHOP Joe Pfeiffer? Cripes. Now I’ve heard everything. I’m embarrased to admit I was a Lefebvrist at one time. What’s more, I was in the seminary with Joe Pfeiffer and I can only say that he’s episcopal timber the way Justin Bieber is an NFL first round draft pick. But then, we are talking about +Dubya, here, so I suppose I shouldn’t be utterly amazed. Way to go, Joe. You’ve been Rick-rolled!

These actions are moving in the wrong direction, regardless of what it is technically called, and that is just wrong. One should work for unity and understanding and that means that one doesn’t take actions that seem to be sticking a finger in someone’s eye.

How is this loving? How does this build loving relationships within the SSPX and with Rome?

Would you do such a thing to your parent, your child? This seems not to be a loving gesture by a father to his prodigal son but more like the tandrum of a prodigal son upon receiving a phone call from his dad. “Oh yeah, you think that we can build a healthy, loving relationship. I’ll show you!” It’s all so sad. It’s all so unnecessary.

In the name of love of fellow Christians, they should wait until something is demanded of them that they cannot do. Has anything been demanded of them? They might be worried about statements. They might be worried that things MIGHT happen — MIGHT be demanded to them — but that is not enough to so insult others’ efforts. Wait, Be patient. See what the Holy Spirit brings. Instead the act prematurely. How is this loving?